• E4J University Module Series: Organized Crime / Counter-Terrorism

• Module 16: Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism

• Introduction and learning outcomes

• Key issues

  • Definitions and terminology
  • Organized crime and terrorism: International legal framework
  • • Terrorism international framework: International terrorism-related conventions
    • Terrorism international framework: General UNSC resolutions on terrorism
    • Organized crime international framework: The Organized Crime Convention and its Protocols
  • Theoretical frameworks on the linkages between organized crime and terrorism
  • Typologies of criminal behaviour associated with terrorism
  • • Terrorism and drug trafficking
    • Terrorism and trafficking in weapons
    • Links between terrorism, crime and trafficking in cultural property / antiquities
    • Trafficking in persons and terrorism
    • Intellectual property crime and terrorism
    • Kidnapping for ransom and terrorism
    • Exploitation of natural resources and terrorism
  • Summary
  • References

• Case studies

• Possible class structure

• Core reading

• Advanced reading

• Student assessment

• • Research and independent study questions
  • Review and assessment questions
  • Quiz 16

• Additional teaching tools

Published March 2019

Regional Perspective: Eastern and Southern Africa - added in April 2020

 

 

  This module is a resource for lecturers  

 

Links between terrorism, crime and trafficking in cultural property / antiquities

 

Key facts

Campbell suggests that a four-stage network supply chain model may be broadly applied to the global trafficking of antiquities and is built on an internal structure that varies depending on geography, laws, economy, and cultural views on antiquities (Campbell, 2013). The stages are: (i) the looting occurs, most often in an area where conflict exists or that is economically depressed; (ii) early-stage middlemen/intermediaries specializing in the procurement and transit of illicit antiquities/cultural property work with organized criminal groups to traffic the objects from the source countries; (iii) a late stage intermediary launders the objects after transit, creates export licenses and false provenance and then brings the objects to the legitimate global market; (iv) the objects enter the legal market via international brokers in the transit country, or arrive in the hands of the collector.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow and the Antiquities Coalition developed a model that is more formal and places an emphasis on hierarchies within criminal groups (MacKenzie & Davis, 2014). This model, summarized, includes: (i) a regional broker organizes a looting at a source location and delivers an artefact to a regional trade hub; (ii) organized criminal groups purchase the objects from brokers and deliver them to a border city; (iii) a receiver takes the artefact to a major city; (iv) an "internationally connected dealer" who works in both the illicit and licit antique trades sells the artefact. Illicitly traded antiquities and cultural property have been identified on eBay (Hardy, 2016), in famous museums (Casey, 2017), as well as in private collections (Feuer, 2017).

Terrorist groups seem to have increasingly taken up trafficking in illicit antiquities and cultural property to fund their operations, support recruits and acquire weapons. According to Shelley, antiquities are not only a source of revenue generation for terrorists, but they also have symbolic value (Shelley, 2014). By destroying and/or removing symbolic representations of culture, terrorist groups effectively undermine the State/nationalism and attack the morale of local populations/peoples through a type of "cultural cleansing" (Sridharan, 2014). 

 

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